Sony Bravia KDL-20S2020 review: Sony Bravia KDL-20S2020

Since it first launched, Sony's 20-inch Bravia KDL-S2020 LCD TV -- complete with HD Ready resolution and connections -- has dropped dramatically in price.

7.5

Sony Bravia KDL-20S2020

The Good

Generally good pictures; HD resolution; PC capabilities; strong features list.

The Bad

Not the prettiest portable TV in town; onscreen menu text is ridiculously small.

The Bottom Line

There really isn't much the Sony Bravia KDL-20S2020 gets wrong. It's got a feature count that leaves most small LCDs trailing, its pictures are miles better than usual for the 'second TV' market and best of all it's an absolute bargain considering how much it's got to offer

It's now looking to be one heck of bargain for around £500.

Strengths
The 20S2020 does seem fearsomely well specified for such an affordable TV. For starters, there's the widescreen HD Ready pixel count of 1,366x768, a high resolution that seldom finds its way on to TVs of this size.

Then there's the way the 20S2020 backs this initial high-definition credential up with HDMI and component video inputs for piping in hi-def sources, as well as providing a D-Sub PC port so that the TV can double up as a computer monitor. Such dual functionality really is invaluable on a portable-sized TV, in our opinion.

More good news comes with the discovery that the 20S2020 sports a digital Freeview tuner, complete with all the expected secondary functionality, such as digital teletext and seven-day electronic programme guide support.

Having pressed all the right feature buttons, it would be tragic if the 20S2020 let us down with its performance. But it doesn't. Not by a long chalk.

Its picture quality is in a different league to that of most small-screen rivals, delivering black-level depths and vibrant colour saturations that wouldn't look out of place on 'main room' TVs at the 32-inch and bigger level.

With HD sources, meanwhile, the TV is capable of producing sharpness and clarity that most small rivals can only dream about. And if you thought you wouldn't be able to appreciate HD's extra resolution on a 20-inch screen, the 20S2020 proves you wrong.

Another common complaint with small LCD TVs -- that the 20S2020 handles superbly well -- is motion smearing. As Tom Cruise charges about during the Berlin warehouse assault sequence in Mission: Impossible III on HD DVD, his pumping arms and twisting head lose far less resolution than we'd anticipate.

The 20S2020's obsession with keeping up with the bigger boys continues with its audio, which contains levels of power, clarity and bass that blow practically all small-TV rivals out of the water.

Weaknesses
There's precious little for us to put in this section. Probably the most glaring problem -- if only for its total stupidity -- is the ridiculously small text used for the onscreen menus. It's hard to make out what they're saying unless you stick your head right up against the screen -- and we have 20:20 vision. Crazy.

With really nothing bad to say about the 20S2020's performance versus its rivals, the only other niggle we can dredge up is that it's not exactly the prettiest 'portable' LCD TV in town.

Conclusion
Class-leading pictures, HD Ready status, bags of features, a digital tuner, a widescreen aspect ratio to get the best from the digital tuner's pictures, PC capabilities, scintillating pictures and sound... and all for around just £500. It's hard to think of anything else you could seriously ask for in a 20-inch telly.

Edited by Jason Jenkins
Additional editing by Jon Squire